May 2008

Here are recommendations from a November ’07 trip to the Campania area of ITALY.

We’ve been to Venice six times, and the perfect hotel if you’re arriving by car or departing on a cruise is Hotel Cá Doge (Piazzale Roma, Sest. Santa Croce 467/e, 30135 Venice, ITALY; phone +39 041 5286 975, fax 041 2410 865, www.cadoge.it).

For those who were saddened by the closure of St. Margaret’s Hotel in Bloomsbury, London, in the spring of 2007, be of good cheer. The Marazzi family, who owned St. Margaret’s for almost 60 years (for those who haven’t heard, the property was sold and is being converted to an “upscale boutique hotel”), owns another London property.

What can you see through the woods but for the trees? On my May ’07 Trans-Siberian Railroad trip I saw plenty.

We took a wonderful vacation to Sumatra and Java, Indonesia, Jan. 17-25, 2008, through Floressa Bali Tours (Jalan Gandapura III K / 16 Kesiman, Denpasar 80237, Bali, Indonesia; phone +62 361 467625, fax 467347 or visit www.floressa-bali.com).

I cannot say enough about the professionalism of their guides, the safe transport, the wonderful accommodations and our personalized itinerary, which included ecotourism and cultural tourism.

My wife, Bonita, and I along with another couple in early 2007 booked the trip “Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego & the Chilean Fjords” with Overseas Adventure Travel (Cambridge, MA) for January ’08. Since we all are wine lovers and enjoy Chilean wines, we also booked the pre-trip to Chile. But the pre-trip included only one winery visit, so I worked out several days on our own in Chile to visit more of the wine country.

On a trip my wife and I took to Europe in May ’07, we picked up a car at the Frankfurt airport that we had reserved over the Internet from National Car Rental. As always, I scrutinized the car carefully before signing the form that claimed it had no damage.

My husband and I departed for Overseas Adventure Travel’s “Hidden Gems: the Dalmatian Coast and Greece” on Oct. 6, 2007. Having traveled three times before with OAT and been satisfied with their flight arrangements, we were surprised to find when the final documents came that we had a more than 7-hour layover in the Frankfurt, Germany, airport.

I went on a very interesting 19-day trip to Mongolia, July 1-19, 2007, with Nomadic Expeditions (Monroe Township, NJ; 800/998-6634, www.nomadic expeditions.com). The president of the company is Mongolian-American. They also have an office in downtown Ulaanbaatar.

The cost of the main trip was $3,575, and an extension to the extreme western province in the Altai mountain range cost $1,550. Airfare was not included.

My husband and I took the tour “From Mystical Tibet to Nomadic Mongolia,” May 29-June 13, 2007, with Nomadic Expeditions.